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KDK Scaffolding celebrate their 20th birthday this month and share with us their story on the run up to Construction Safety Week 2017.
Celebrating 20 years in business, KDK Scaffolding is one of Ireland’s leading scaffolding contractors. Founded in September 1997 by directors Robert and Matt Kelly, KDK Scaffolding has grown to employ 80 – 100 staff and has become synonymous with the scaffolding contractor sector.
The company’s collective years of experience guarantee a professional and complete service to your project. KDK Scaffolding believes in a working partnership with its clients and provides an unrivaled service regardless of project size.
KDK have specialised materials for the manufacturing, pharmaceutical industries and clean room environments, and prides themselves on the experience, knowledge and expertise of their employees, who undergo continuous development and training programmes to keep them at the forefront of delivering state-of-the-art scaffolding service.
KDK Scaffolding has earned a reputation for integrity, professionalism and excellence with its success being built on total dedication to quality and service as well as an impeccable safety record. The company’s growth has been primarily driven by repeat orders from existing clients, demonstrating their level of confidence in the ability of KDK.
KDK’s company motto is “Work Smarter, Better, Safer”. Health and Safety is fundamental to everything KDK does. They rigorously adhere to the standards of the SafeTCert safety management systems and have the distinction of been accredited with an ‘A’ grade for the past 4 years.
Recently, KDK have been appointed as the sole Irish distributor for ALFIX scaffolding systems. ALFIX is an innovative established brand for façade and modular scaffolding systems, mobile towers and temporary roofing systems in the European market.
KDK Director Robert Kelly gave us an insight into KDK’s operation in scaffold refurbishment.
As an innovator in the construction industry, KDK are now operating a scaffold cleaning, shot blasting and repainting service. Customers stocks are decaying rapidly since the fall of the Celtic Tiger, having been lying around and rotting in yards and out buildings for many years.
This type of damage to individual components needs to be inspected thoroughly to separate bad, rusted, bent, broken or failures and rotted pieces away from the good items that are fit for the intended purpose – to support designed scaffolds weights on construction sites at present for safe access and egress to many of the trades contracted to complete the building works at different heights.
KDK took the innovated expansion initiative of a new product introduction and refurbishment services to complement their strong contract scaffolding core business.
This type of service has not been available until now, so unless your scaffolding has passed the rigors of our advanced complete inspection process, then you simply cannot rely on it to do its job and do it right. Instead we have a rejection rate following these inspections of 30% – 36% on scaffold that has just been taken down off a project.
KDK’s expertise in this area is considerable and they believe that every piece rejected could have easily have caused a collapse or death or serious injuries to unsuspected users.
In our photos you can see for yourself the decline from BSEN Standard of 3.2mm-4mm wall thickness that has reduced down to less than 1mm thick so if these type of items are used then they will fail once a crane or teleporter places the pallet of blocks or anything onto the scaffold, even without impact loading values.
All items marked and painted for use on the clients scaffold by KDK will be of a high standard of finish products and will perform their duty that is asked of them. All scaffolds especially painted of rusted type will need to be graded every 3-5 years as the rust decay doesn’t stop, but carries on until the lifetime of the unit of scaffold is scrapped at lives end.
Cleaning – Shot blasting – Painting Procedures
This is a very important stage of the cleaning process. Should you get it wrong then you are taking too much steel thickness away with the shot, which could result in items with lower wall thickness. Get it right then it will be only the exact depth of concrete or paint that is removed, without compromising the steel.
All items are visually inspected before been stacked for shot blasting by trained operatives. All damaged items are removed and stacked to return to the customer for disposal.
All Standards then pass through the Nodding Donkey test. This is a physical inspection testing and searching for weaknesses in the wall thickness, V pressings, Spigots and for internal rust that causes damage from the inside out – eating away from the strength of the standard (upright).
As items passes through the shot blaster they are turned and go through for a second time. This process takes 6 minutes to complete and are then visually inspected again. If passed it moves onto our conveyor dipping process, and dipped to customer colour requirements. If failed it is stacked for customer disposal.
Dipping operatives continue to check items at every stage. Damaged components fall into many types – pins, bananas, wedges, welded joints, broken welded joints, inside tube rust, rust accumulation on all items.
Destructive Testing by an outside company forms part of the overall inspection and certification process.
PPE criteria are to a very high standard where dust and fumes are common. To deal with dust, extractors were installed to carry the dust away from the operatives in the vicinity that may be effected by airborne particles. This is closely monitored daily. All operatives undergo medicals to conform to Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (General Application) Regulation 2007.
KDK are proud to offer such a unique service to the construction industry and consistently aiding health & safety in the sector.
As a gesture for Construction Safety Week 2017, KDK will give all scaffold owners who register to get their scaffold tested, shot blasted and dipped a 10% discount.
Simple test to see if you qualify for the 10% discount:
- How old is your scaffold?
- How was it stored in bad weather?
- Was it horizontal in stacks?
- When it was moved, did rust or water escape in vertical position?
- Is the outside rusty with no paint?
So now we can save your life by helping you to grade your scaffolding components and get rid of the scrap items!
For more information on KDK services, visit KDKScaffolding.ie